Orlando oasis: This is Really It

Each of the feature documentaries in competition
 got a full page in the Florida Film Fest catalog

Florida Film Festival in Orlando (April 5-14) was our second U.S. festival for the new documentary, BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton, and I was the only one of our team who could make it there.  It was an amazing experience, full of insights, surprises, and celebrations.

With my bro-in-love John Reimann, sister
Alice Reimann and mother Helen Silha

One great thing was, my family joined me for the first screening, a matinee on Saturday April 6, at the Regal Theater in Winter Park.  The audience was small – maybe 50 – but spirited.  My mother, sister, and brother-in-law finally got to see the completed film on a big screen with good sound and picture.

We drove back to Sarasota, Longboat Key exactly, where my family has taken winter vacations since I was 14, and celebrated my birthday on Tuesday the 9^th.  We also swam, walked the beach, and toured the colorful private rooms in the Ringling mansion.

Birthday dinner - dinner & photo by John Reimann

The view from the tower of the roof tiles at
Ca D'Zan, John & Mabel Ringling's mansion

Mabel Ringling's rose garden

A winged lion at the Venetian style Ringling Mansion

I returned to Orlando for four days of spectacular movie-viewing and partying with other filmmakers and with our wonderful “street team” of students (David, Nate, and Brittany) from Florida Central University, who posted and distributed cards and did radio and web publicity for the film.

Our second screening was at the fabulous Enzian Theater,
where you can lounge on couches and eat
(or dance) on tables.

Among the films I loved:  Nina Davenport’s First Comes Love. Jeremy Workman’s Magical Universe, Jamie Meltzer's Informant, plus lots of short films.

On Friday, I participated in a panel on filmmaking artfully moderated by Rollins College professor Denise Cummings.  

Getting ready to go onstage to introduce BIG JOY

Saturday was the awards brunch at the Enzian, and BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature Documentary!  That was a great surprise.  And it was wonderful that T.R. Boyce and Andrew Mudge's The Forgotten Kingdom won the audience award for Best Narrative Feature.  They participated with us in the 2012 Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) Labs for first-time filmmakers.

BIG JOY: International premiere sparkles at Hong Kong International Film Festival...

Happy Easter! A typical exhibit at a sparkling megamall

One of the amazing restaurants in Hong Kong
has a fabulous aquarium - don't think this was for eating!

Hong Kong is a mega-mall city full of mirrors and contradictions: stunning skyscrapers, beautiful old hills.  Life drilled up ~ not unusual to find a pub on the 5^th or 105th floor … and down into glistening subway malls or ancient tunnels and caves.

Some of the thinnest skyscrapers I've seen!

So it’s a great place to bring James Broughton’s fusion of West and East, male and female, fast and slow, this and that – into the world outside the United States.

It’s an honor to be part of a festival with over 300 films from 68 countries, showing in various places around this polyglot Asian citystate.  And to be part of a festival that honors film as film, that brings such films as Broughton’s “The Bed” and “The Golden Positions” to audiences in the original 16mm format.  Indeed, it’s the first festival to mount a 2013 centennial retrospective of 8 of Broughton’s 23 films, along with our new documentary, “BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton.” 

When I met the festival’s director, Roger Garcia, in New York at Independent Film Week in 2011, he knew Broughton’s films (as an experimental filmmaker himself) and immediately warmed to the idea of a retrospective.  He also offered introductions to other festivals which might consider doing the same. 

Now, my first time in Hong Kong, it amazes me to see the program Roger and his colleagues have assembled.  So many truly insightful and beautiful films.  So much diversity.  Lots of courageous choices.  I walk around amazed at the endless shopping opportunities, both for festival films and for everything from motor parts to duck gizzards, cameras to bling.

Amazing veggies at the wet market

At the same time, thanks to connections made through the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, I’ve had a chance to give two lectures at City University of Hong Kong’s Creative Media Center, one on the future of journalism (The Sixth W: What’s Possible Now?) and one on the move from journalist to documentary filmmaker (focused on my experiences with BIG JOY). 

City University of Hong Kong's Run Run Shaw

Austin in the Blood. Texas, that is.

World premiere marquis at Stateside Theatre, Austin, Texas

March 9, 2013

What to say about the world premiere of BIG JOY: TheAdventures of James Broughton?

Eric Slade and Stephen Silha at the first Q&A,

introduced by Janet Pierson who knew James Broughton

and Joel Singer at San Francisco Art Institute

It was 8 days of non-stop attention to detail, press interviews, screenings, meeting people, and making merry. The reception to the film was all we could expect. Audiences said it inspired them. Critics wrote glowing reviews. And we loved being part of South by Southwest (SXSW), the festival of music, film, and interactive media which has become one of the world’s major creative showcases.  We joined 160,000 participants!

It’s hard to sum up how we gave birth to our new baby, but it involved poetry, music, and getting in trouble with the police for having a bed on the streets of Austin.

We were honored to be one of eight documentaries out of 900 submissions to be chosen to be in the competition at SXSW.  

Janet Pierson, senior programmer at SXSW, greeted  Stephen Silha at the filmmakers' welcome lunch  at Austin's Troublemaker Studios, owned by director Robert Rodriguez

Lucy's, our favorite chicken & oyster spot

Big Joy poster crew, including (front, l-r) Eric Slade, Michael Port, Kitten Calfee, Palmer Stevens,  Max St. Romain, (back l-r) Kyung Lee, Alex Gildzen, David Senk, Stephen Silha, Tony Krebs, Gordon Barnett

A number of our production team assembled for the premiere, and we rented a house so we could sleep up to 12 people comfortably.  Among the crew:

Eric Slade, co-director and careful guide along the shoals of interviewing, researching, animating, and piecing together the story.

Max St. Romain, our intrepid producer from Mexico City, who has been involved from the beginning, designing our first website, many of our t-shirts and graphic materials, and consulting with the music.

Kyung Lee, who has seen the film through post-production after ably assisting Dawn Logsdon in the editing process.

Kitten Calfee, our amazing producer for marketing and distribution, who coordinated much of the posting of posters and who MC’d the poetry reading at Bookwoman Bookstore, one of the few stores in the country which has a small stock of Broughton books.

Consulting Producer David Senk, who managed our tickets and logistics, some networking, and several events, including the Bookwoman reading.

Alex Gildzen, the archivist who first managed the organization of the Broughton papers at Kent State University in Ohio, and who plays a major storytelling role in the film.

Clayton Farris and Matt Johnstone keep in touch with press

Matt Johnstone managed our publicity, which included a number of media interviews, and a live appearance on a very funny Austin radio show.  Clayton Farris ably assisted him.

In "The Bed" outside the theatre after world premiere:  (l-r) David Senk, Alex Gildzen, Kitten Calfee,  Eric Slade, Kyung Lee, Stephen Silha

Eric and I were fortunate to be joined by our partners, Michael Port and Gordon Barnett.  Both pitched in to help the process, and Gordon made us smoothies and managed the challenging load-out magnificently.  He also assisted in one of the most exciting activities of the excursion: taking a bed around Austin to promote the film.

Tony Krebs with "The Bed" outside our  rented house in Austin

The bed caper was the brainchild of Tony Krebs, an activist, organizer and communications specialist from Seattle who happened to see the film at a private preview screening last month. Tony volunteered to help us create the bed, and he ended up doing much more, helping to supply the house and keeping a steady calm in the midst of occasional craziness.

Dear old friend Canis Millican loaned us his bed, which he and Tony outfitted with wheels so we could maneuver it through the city’s streets and sidewalks.  (We were happy that 6^th Street was closed to auto traffic day and night!)

Kitten Calfee is joined by several Sisters ofPerpetual Indulgence, who hosted our after-party at Rain bar (Broughton served as Sister Sermonetta)

James Broughton’s film, The Bed (1967), was his most famous film, and featured a number of San Francisco luminaries (including Alan Watts, Imogen Cunningham, Anna Halprin, Gavin Arthur, Jean Varda) cavorting on a bed which rolled over the hills of Marin County.  It was pioneering in its celebration of naked bodies, and was the quintessential hippie film.

Kyung Lee, Stephen Silha,  Max St. Romain and Eric Slade  enjoying The Bed

Three Austin police write a ticket to Kitten Calfee

So celebrating all the things that can happen on a bed seemed a great way to invite people to focus on Big Joy. Lots of people posed with Kitten as he positioned himself in his underwear on the bed. Ultimately, the Austin police posed too as they wrote him a ticket for “advertising without permit.”  They made us remove the signs, but had no problem with the bed being there.  By that time, it was about time for our third and final screening to begin.

Response from the press was phenomenal.  Beginning with the Hollywood Reporter on opening day, we had excellent reviews from The Edge Boston, Austin Chronicle, Film Threat, and the Brain Pickings blog.  

Local writer and teacher Andy Campbell wrote a beautiful report for Austin Chronicle blog on the poetry reading at Bookwoman Bookstore.  

All in all, SXSW Austin couldn't have been a better place to celebrate our "weird" new film.  Austin's in our blood, and we're cookin' with steam.

Live from New York

A rainy day in New York - as seen from the HBO headquarters

It’s been a long while since I’ve blogged, and for good reason I guess:  I’ve been working my tail off finishing the film, BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton.

And we’re almost there – what a triumph and a relief.  It will be released next year, just in time for Broughton’s Centennial!  At the same time, how sad.  You work on a film for four years, molding and shaping it, creating and then “killing your children” as you edit out scenes.  And once it’s “in the can” (one of many gloriously outdated expressions in filmmaking), you can’t change anything. 

We ritually gave birth to the film last month, all 82 minutes of it, at the annual Summer Gathering of Radical Faeries at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Detroit, Oregon.  It was apt and poetic that we staged a sneak preview of our work-in-progress there.  For it was there that I met James Broughton in 1989, at a winter gathering of Radical Faeries; we were assigned to the same cabin.

I had seen a few of his films 10 years earlier when I stumbled into them at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.  There, I was transfixed by his visions of a world where things are perfect after the fuddy-duddies get overturned, nudity is natural, humor hugged and contradictions embraced.

Now, it seems, all but a small number of experimental film freaks and poetry aficionados have forgotten about Broughton.  Hence, this film. 

Here’s how we described it in some 24 meetings we had during Independent Film Week September 16-20 in New York:  “Big Joy is a documentary about living your passions and becoming the person of your dreams, disguised as an inspiring biopic about the wild and crazy California filmmaker and poet James Broughton.”

On September 17, people got to see 20 minutes of BIG JOY

Independent Film Week, organized by our favorite filmmaker support organization, the IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project), is an annual marketplace where emerging filmmakers get to pitch their works-in-progress to various industry executives and festival programmers.  I also went there last year with the multimedia Big Joy Project, when the film was still in “rough assembly” stage.  This year, we had an almost-finished film to show, and the response was encouraging.

We met with HBO in their beautiful headquarters in midtown Manhattan, and were able to hand our film to Sheila Nevins, known as the Goddess of Documentaries at HBO.  We also met with American Documentary/POV, Strand Releasing, Motto Films, and with many fine festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, Frameline, NewFest and Hot Docs.

It really helps to have a finished piece of the film to show.  In our case, we showed a 20-minute preview and for the Labs Showcase we showed the first three and a half minutes.  Readers of this blog can watch it via a sneak preview here:

http://vimeo.com/ericslade/bigjoyopen
the password is: james

We were astounded when each of the 20 films in the IFP 2012 Labs (10 documentaries and 10 narrative films) got to show 4 minutes, and our film got a rousing response.  One filmmaker even told me, “This inspires me to go back tonight and edit my film with even more creativity than I thought possible.”

A scene from Big Joy (from Broughton's film Erogeny) - as seen on the big screen outside at the  IFP Labs Showcase presented by Rooftop Films

A reporter from the Daily Mail of London posted a blog report saying she loved being “seduced by the silly” in the Big Joy clip.

We’re now in a waiting period to see which festivals accept the film, while we continue raising money for finishing, marketing, and distribution.

Eric Slade's film about Harry Hay, Hope Along the Wind, showed at the Radically Gay conference

Co-director/producer Eric Slade and I also participated in a conference the following week at City University of New York, NYU, and the Gay & Lesbian Center called “Radically Gay:  The Life and Visionary Legacy of Harry Hay.”    It was an interesting mixture of academic, fun, and faerie events celebrating the founder of the first national gay organization in the U.S., the Mattachine Society, who also “co-founded” the Radical Faeries.

The view from Alan and Andrea's house on Martha's Vineyard

That, plus a marvelous visit to Martha’s Vineyard, where I was hosted by my friends Alan and Andrea Rabinowitz, made for an exciting and exhausting three weeks on the East Coast.

At last, a bit of a rest!

Another amazing love story ... Johnny & Kristin!

 Johnny's parents kiss him off while sister Sarah, bride Kristin, and brother/Best Man David laugh on

It was another tear-jerker.  Family Wedding Number Two for 2011: Nephew Johnny Reimann and Dr. Kristin Jacobsen, amazing athlete, veterinarian, and human being.

Kristin Jacobsen had it all mapped out – literally.

 Kristin doesn't like cake, so she ordered an "ice cake" - very Minnesota - which melted beautifully with colored lights during the evening

She had organized a rehearsal dinner at “Spill the Wine,” a trendy restaurant in a restored factory.  She gave everyone in the wedding party spreadsheets so they knew where to be when and how to get there.

Johnny and Kristin’s wedding was quite different from his sister Sarah Likens’ in June.  No church, no minister, no hymns.  It was en pleine air, atop a beautiful terrace at Nicollet Island on the Mississippi River in the heart of downtown Minneapolis.   Across the river, you could see the brick condominium where Johnny and Kristin have lived together for two-plus years.

 

 The wedding party getting ready in the "green room" 

Officiating graciously was Justin Gaard, a childhood friend of Johnny’s and a radio personality in the Twin Cities.  He established his “man of the cloth” position from Universal Life Church, which gives on-line ministerial licenses, and proceeded to crack hilarious jokes even as he performed the simple ceremony beautifully.

  

Lindsey Jacobsen with mother of the bride Liz Jacobsen

Kristin’s beautiful sister Lindsey, as Maid of Honor, watched after the train of Kristin’s wedding gown, and helped Kristin keep her cool as her carefully orchestrated wedding flowed on.  Johnny’s brother David was a solid Best Man, who provided a comical moment as the diamond-studded wedding rings in his pocket got caught on an errant thread when he pulled them out.

 The bridal bouquet

 The ceremony was joyously sparse, with very few frills – just a lot of personal comments most of which had been solicited by the couple ahead of time:  grandmothers’ advice (honesty & first-priority love), their own reasons for marrying each other (integrity and fun), parental suggestions (take alone-time and together-time often).  

 Kristin thanks Grandma Helen for great advice

A lavish reception followed in the adjoining pavilion -- made from the ruins of a boiler factory built in 1886.   There, a photo booth provided guests an opportunity to take funny photos in various styles (b/w, color, sepia, etc.), which went into an album which you signed – a great way to remember more than just the guest list.  Nearby, photos of the weddings of the bride and groom’s parents and grandparents proffered a window into the past. 

  

Gordon and I had fun in the photo booth

After a luscious dinner, we danced late into the night.  Young relatives wowed the group with break-dancing, even as the bride and groom danced with everyone.  The Reimann and Jacobsen clans melded.

 Proud parents Alice and John Reimann - whew, enough weddings for awhile!

The next morning, the grandmothers hosted a brunch at the Westin Hotel in downtown Minneapolis, built around the old Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank, where I had first deposited my coins in elementary school. 

 

Helen, Mark and Gordon enjoy breakfast with the groom the morning after

 

The bride and groom then swept away to their honeymoon in Costa Rica and Belize, where they planned to hike and scuba dive.

 Kristin and Johnny Reimann - the honeymooners - made a quick getaway the next morning

Having two weddings in one year put all our cousins together more than we’ve been for decades.  We enjoyed looking at photos, many card games, a great performance of “Hairspray” at Chanhassan Dinner Theater, and a hike at the family farm (since sold to the Philadelphia Community, a wonderful Theosophical group).

 Cousins Francia Mann, Charlotte Wuepper, my sister Alice (mother of the groom), Lynn and Jim Shaffer - on Nicollet Island

And we noted how few divorces have happened in our family.

A story of love...Sarah and Jeff tie the knot

photos by Brady Willette

It really WAS the most beautiful wedding I’ve ever been to.  And I’ve been to some pretty great ones.

My niece Sarah Reimann married Jeff Likens, and now they’re Mrs. and Mr. Sarah and Jeff Likens!  The service was held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Minneapolis – a place sacred to our family because my sister Alice and hubby John were married there in 1978.  My dad Otto’s funeral gathered 650 there in 1999.  And it’s a place where many great ecumenical speakers have spoken.  Plus, it’s a gorgeous sanctuary, with big stained glass windows arranged around a central dome. 

First of all, the people were gorgeous.  Michelle Obama’s obesity campaign not much needed here.  The wedding party could all be models.  Many attendees, too.

 My nephews Johnny and David look on as Alice lights a candle

Second, we were treated to luminous music played by my cousins Charlotte Wuepper (on flute) and Francia Mann (on violin), with Francie’s husband Brian accompanying them on piano for one of my favorite pieces (Delibes’ wonderful Flower duet) while the couple lit their own "union candle" and blew out the two their mothers had lit before.  Tears trickled from my eyes.

Reverend Richard Phenow, married to one of Alice’s friends who danced with her in the Edina High School Hornettes precision dance line, officiated in an intensely personal, humorous, affirming, down-home way.  Practical spirituality.  He encouraged a long, heart-melting kiss.

Click on the photo and see if you recognize anyone...

Afterwards, the crowd blew bubbles as the couple exuberantly burst out of the church and headed to the Minikahda Club, where I had learned to swim as a child and where we’ve celebrated many weddings, funerals, and high school reunions. 

John Reimann introduced the wedding party, who sat at their own long table while the rest of us sat at round 10-tops which seemed more intimate than most because the stunning flower arrangements, featuring mock orange, carnations, and hydrangia, were on high “towers” that allowed you to see everyone at the table.  He said, "Before we walked down the aisle, Sarah turned to me and said, 'I'm so ready for this!'" -- and it showed all night.

  Gordon & Mark celebrating on the terrace at the Minikahda Club - the weather was great!

The best men (Jeff’s older brother T.J., and his best friend Brandon Heider) gave heartfelt talks which were revealing about Jeff’s dry humor.  Sarah’s bridesmaids gave moving and hilarious reminiscences about her bawdy leadership at a young age.  The dinner was over-the-top, with Minnesota walleyed pike and boneless beef rib, a vegetable mélange with white and green asparagus, an amazing salad, and chocolate brule for dessert.  (The cake was small and only for the wedding party.)

Sarah and Jeff dreamed up an apt theme of  “new story,” and invited people at the tables to tell stories of first dates, weddings, and about Sarah and Jeff themselves.  Many told hilarious tales.  Jeff, a professional hockey player whose latest gig’s in Ingolstadt, Germany (about an hour from Munich), had a number of his childhood and hockey friends at the wedding.  He and Sarah will live in Germany with their bulldog, Quinn.

 Helen, Alice & Steve at the Club

Sarah, and my sister Alice and her husband John Reimann, have so many friends in Twin Cities area that they had to severely limit the number they could afford to invite. 

One of my favorite moments was when the excellent band played a Lady Gaga tune, and my nephew David rocked out like one of her dancers.  My mother Helen danced along.  Many of us are still dancing.

I wonder whether this generation of young adults – many of whom have lived together and wait until later in their 20s to get married – will have a lower divorce rate than we boomers.  Time will tell.

Gratitude for All

Why is Thanksgiving my favorite holiday?

It’s about gratitude, which makes for a salubrious attitude.

It’s about friends, it’s about connecting over great food.

It’s about great questions like the one Orlando asked at our feast: “What do you appreciate about your mother?”

And as usual at Soundcliff (our home), it’s about poetry, music, improvisation, and everyone contributing a course. The meal usually starts at 1 p.m. and flows until 10 p.m., including breaks for hikes, conversations, and fun sharing.

Because several folks have inquired about this year’s menu, here it is:

Cocktails: Hard and soft cider, carrot-ginger juice, Chai, Ginger Tea, Margaritas, white wine

Pu-Pus: Cheeses, Belle’s homemade chicken liver pate, smoked eggs, chips with salsa, artichoke & cabbage dips (by Tom and David)

Oysters: Raw on the half-shell & cooked with Indian palak, parmisan & cream (Malcolm)

Salad: Fresh greens (spicy mustard, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, brocolini, etc.) with triticale berry mix topped with crab cake (Malcolm & Stephen)

Bruschetta: French bread with cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil (Whitney)

Turkey: Roast brined garlic turkey (Gordon) with Sequoia’s cranberry relish and candied yams, garlic mashed potatoes, triticale salad, shaved brussels sprouts with almonds

Mead: fabulously fermented one-year-old mead (honey wine) by Tom

Dingle Sticky Toffee Pudding: an amazing cake with toffee and vanilla whipped cream (Chris)

And dessert all through the days: Michael Hathaway’s lime-coconut bars and cardamom lemon cookies.

*

Among the readings:

WHAT IS MY HEART’S DESIRE?

A beautiful quiet place in Nature, self-sustaining,

Where loving people pass their time in inspiration,

Do what’s needed, living well, mastering skills

As we help each other heal this world,

Preparing still richer worlds for all who care to share:

Where The Magical breathes in every heart

And reflects through all our faces, eyes and limbs,

Where Love and Wisdom have been discovered to be innate,

Where there’s time for wit and fun,

Where work and play and reverence are one,

Where we appreciate ourselves as Divinity that’s manifesting,

Where we create – live out – explore

the full, full wonder of our destinies,

Where we – serenely or ecstatically –

Where we – yes – truly walk in beauty

All the days of our lives.

- Michael Hathaway

**

Around the table: Chris, Michael, Sequoia, Whitney, Gordon, Tom, David, Orlando, Malcolm

And of course, from James Broughton:

Sing Out for Eros

You on your seat there

sit up and sing out

Sing Out for Eros

Love is unbelievable

so it must be believed

Believe your own loving

your passion and folly

your incredible hopes

Praise the marvels of

joy tube and love pump

If you must feel tortured

respect your misery

and be happy about it

Only the nonsensical is

at east with the Absolute

Listen to your angels

ripening your secrets

Come to beautiful terms

with the god in your body

with the body of your god

Share flesh with others

Wake love Make love

Clasp hearts Exuberate

And never look back till

you are far out of sight

*

Blessings to all for a holiday season with plenty of time for rest, introspection, wit, fun, and joy.